


katharsis

by Marcia Elena (marciaelena)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M, Post-Colonization (X-Files)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-27 01:01:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14414274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marciaelena/pseuds/Marcia%20Elena
Summary: An end, and also a beginning.





	katharsis

**Author's Note:**

> Written July/August 2002. 
> 
> For you, Logan. Because you helped me get them to the right place.

Standing silent before you, the gates of Hell lie crooked and ajar. The Mothership, the alien's main base of operations, finally brought down by the human resistance. 

Years of fighting are over. You've won. The gates of Hell are silent, now: no more will they swallow anyone to suffer unspeakable horrors, only to spit them back out again, chewed and half-digested, their bodies used for unnatural things, their souls gone, lost, forgotten. 

The air should've been sweet this time of year, the promise of spring floating in the air. But all you can smell is death; all around you, blackened bodies lay strewn, some human, some alien, some unrecognizable. 

Nothing stirs here. The two of you are the only things left alive for miles. You look at Mulder, beautiful and tall and tired next to you, his gaze locked on the ruined ship, his face carved by pain. Victory Day, yet Mulder doesn't smile; he never does anymore. For a moment you're sure he means to go into that blackness, to find the end that, for so long, you've both believed would be yours--to die in Hell, since there was no more Heaven to live in. But after a while Mulder turns his back on it, and his eyes come to rest on yours. 

His eyes. There's a question in them, lurking behind the gleam of tears that were never born, of sanity that was never lost. Against all odds--those are the words that can best describe you both. From grudging partners to enemies to allies. Never lovers or even friends--there was never any time for it, every second of your days turned toward desperate survival--and yet, somehow, closer than that. You haven't needed words in years, Mulder and you; as leaders of the resistance, you've learned to communicate silently, with no more than a glance or a gesture. 

All is silence now, here at the gates of Hell. The recent rains have turned the ground into a soggy mass of red mud; rivers of blood, running thick and heavy through this land. But you've won. And Mulder looks at you, the question still in his eyes, waiting, waiting. 

And you can't move. Because for the first time in--forever--you don't understand. 

A shudder runs through the air; distant thunder, stirring of wind, the world holding its breath. Mulder steps closer to you, the question a burning thing now, his arms hot as burning coals as they wrap around your waist, his lips a brand against your own. And Mulder kisses you, holding you to him as he trembles, pouring his question into your mouth, down your throat, kissing, kissing, finding your heart, trembling, Mulder's whole body asking, asking, asking. 

Touching your soul. Turning you into water, into fire. 

Pulling away. 

Looking at you, beautiful and silent by the gates of Hell. 

You don't need words. And you understand the question now. But the world is still holding its breath, the clouds above you gravid with rain. With tears, to wash away the blood. 

"Yes," you speak aloud. Shattering the silence. 

The skies open, its deluge battering the ship into final submission. 

And Mulder smiles. Pain is still etched on his face, but his eyes are open now, and his arms are open--everything is open, the sky, and Mulder, and you, and the future. And you fall into him, affirmation still on your lips as you kiss again and again, speaking without words as behind you the gates of Hell crumble and are no more. 

No more. Not Hell, not silence. And Heaven has been lost for too long to ever be found again. A paradise impossible to regain, since it was never yours. 

But you have the Earth again. And you have each other, coming together at the last, touched and touching and alive. 

And that is enough.


End file.
